“Hey!”
“What?” he said. “At least she was shaking them for you and not someone else.”
“I don’t think she even realized she was shaking them for me.” I let out an exasperated sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“She couldn’t see. Her contacts fell out in the cake.”
He burst out laughing. “No way! That is priceless, absolutely priceless.”
I smiled reluctantly. “Yeah, it sounds like Abby to me.”
“So she’s a good secretary, I’m assuming, and that’s why you’re not firing her.”
“She’s not bad,” I admitted. “She only started working for me recently.”
“I should’ve known.” My brother shook his head. “You go through secretaries faster than you go through women.”
“Hey, that’s not true.” I frowned. “I go through women a lot faster than I go through secretaries.”
Kent shook his head, exasperated. “When are you going to finally settle down?”
“Never,” I scoffed. “You know that.”
“I mean, I just don’t understand.” He looked thoughtfully at me. “I think you’d actually enjoy being in love.”
“No, thank you. You can have the love, and I’ll have the money.”
“Or you could have love and money,” Kent pointed out. “You know we’re adults now, Dylan. We don’t have to worry about putting food on the table anymore. And …” he paused, “well, you know.”
“What?” I grumbled.
“About not being loved,” he said. “I know you’ve always looked after me our entire life, and you bore the brunt of everything we went through and …” My brother sighed. “Look, I know it was hard growing up, and I know emotionally you’re closed off, but I want you to have what I have. I want you to find someone who looks at you the way that Lucia looks at me.”
“Yeah, you and Lucia have true love. La di da di da.” I rolled my eyes.
“What? Don’t make fun. We really do. I feel like she was made for me.”
“Well, I sure hope that it lasts, brother.”
“Oh, Dylan,” he sighed, frustrated. “It sucks that you just can’t see what I see.”
“What am I not seeing that you see?”
“That you were made for love, bro.”
I started laughing. “Are you joking? Are you high? Did one of your friends give you ecstasy or something?”
“You looked after me so well our entire lives. You’re the most loving, caring brother that could ever exist and—”
“I had to be there for you. We didn’t have parents.”
“I know we didn’t have parents. A lot of people don’t have parents, or people have parents and the marriages are fucked up, or the parents abused them or treat them like shit. Everyone has something that happens to them, and it’s not about the past anymore. You have to get out of that mind frame, Dylan. You have to—”
“I’m not in that mind frame. That’s why I’m a billionaire. I’m not poor anymore. I don’t have to depend upon anyone else. I’m not bouncing from house to house to house. I don’t say home because none of those places were homes.”
“Every single place felt like a home to me.” My brother squeezed my shoulder. “And you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because of you. Because I always had you. And that’s what love is. That’s what Lucia is to me. She’s my sense of home. She’s in my heart, and I’m in hers. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing. Anytime I’m with her, I feel like I’m home. There’s a sense of …” He paused. “Well, I’m not going to say it. You’ll just laugh.”
“I might laugh, but tell me what you’re thinking.”
“There’s a sense of completeness,” he said. “And I know it’s hard for you to understand, but it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.”
“Well, I’m glad that you have that. I have that when I’m at work.”
“You have that when you’re at work.” He looked skeptical. “You feel complete at work?”
“Yep. Every time I look at my bank account, I feel complete, brother. Every time I go out with a hot model, I feel complete. Every time I go to my luxury penthouse or get into my Maserati or my Ferrari or my Rolls-Royce or my Bentley, I feel complete.”
“Those are just possessions, bro. They don’t mean anything. And the women you date,” my brother rolled his eyes, “I doubt they’re making you feel complete.”
“You would be very much mistaken because they make me feel very complete. In fact, they make me feel depleted, if you know what I mean.” I winked at him.
Kent just sighed in response.
I wasn’t going to admit it, but if I was honest, he had a point. I never felt at peace with the women I dated. I never felt complete or happy. They were just people to pass the time by with, trophies to be seen with to make other men want to be me, to admire me. I didn’t really care about them.
If I was 100% honest with myself, I didn’t feel complete in my life at all.
Yes, I had money and yes, I had more cars than I could count, and I had luxury properties all over the world, but none of that meant anything to me. Not that I wanted a wife or a family, God forbid. I hated kids. But sometimes, when I did see a family walking down the street, I felt wistful. I wished it was me and my parents. More than anything, I wished my brother and I had had that happy family.
It was weird. I was an adult. I’d given up on my dreams of the perfect family long ago. Yet sometimes, when I was in the park and I saw a dad bending down and catching a ball and throwing it to his son, I thought, what would my life have been like if that had been my childhood?
“Hey, Dylan,” Kent said softly. “You there?”
“I’m here, bro.” I gazed just beyond him, not meeting his eyes. “I was just thinking.”
“I know,” he said. “But anyway, your secretary seemed very perky.” He grinned.
“Stop it.”
“You’re awfully defensive of her, aren’t you?” Kent’s eyes narrowed and he looked me over. “Huh,” he said.
“What do you mean huh?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged innocently. “Just huh.”
“Explain, please.”
“Explain what?” He put his arm around me. “Come on, let’s get back to the party. The guys are probably wondering where we’ve gone.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
“And I did notice that blonde was checking you out.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure she’d be willing to spend the night with you.”
“I have no interest in her.” I shook my head. “She can date one of your other friends, but she will not be getting her claws into me.”
“Really?” He acted surprised. “She seemed like the sort that you’d normally go for.”
“Really? What about her is something that I would go for?”